to make this yet more plain he addes Si Rex fuerit sine fraeno id est lege if the King be without a bridle that is saith he lest you should mistake what he meanes by the bridle and thinke he meanes force and armes the Law they ought to put this bridle unto him that is to presse him with this Law and still to shew him his duty even as we do both to King and people saying this is the Law this should bridle you but here is not a word of commanding much lesse of forcing the King not a word of superiority nor yet simply of equality and therefore I must say hoc argumentum nihil ad rhombum 3 That neither Peers nor Parliament are co-ordinate with the King these do abuse every author If their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I speak not of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their natural strength and power but of their right and authority be coordinate and equal with the Kings authority then whether given by God which they cannot prove or by the people there must be duo summa imperia two supreme powers which the Philosophers say cannot be nam quod summum est unum est from whence they prove Omnâ—sque Philosoph jâ—riâ—consalti ponunt summum in eo rerum genere quod dicâ—di non possit Lâ—ctanâ— l. 1. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maâ—c 3. 24 the unity of the God-head that there can be but one God and if this supreme power be divided betwixt King and Parliament you know what the Poet saith Omnisque potestas Impatiens consortis erit Or you may remember what our Saviour saith If a Kingdome be divided against it selfe it cannot stand and therefore when Tiberius out of his wonted subtilty desired the Senate to appoint a colleague and partner with him for the better administration of the Empire Asinius Gallus that was desirous enough of their Pristine liberty yet understanding well with what minde the subtle fox spake onely to descry his ill willers after some jests answered seriously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that government must not be divided because you can never have any happiness where the power is equally divided in two parts when according to the well known axiome to every one Par in parem non habet potestatem But to make the matter cleare and to shew that the Soveraignty The Case of our Affaires p. 19. 20. The Lawes of our Land acknowledge all Soveraignty in the King is inseperably inherent in the person of His Majesty we have the whole current of our very Acts of Parliament acknowledging it in these very termes Our Soveraigne Lord the King and the Parliament 25. Hen. 8. saith This your Graces Realme recognizing no superiour under God but your Grace c. And the Parliament 16. Rich. 2. 5. affirmeth the Crown of England to have been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately to God in all things touching the regality of the said Crown and to none other and in the 25. of Hen. 5. the Parliament declareth that it belongeth to the Kings regality to grant or deny what Petitions in Parliament he pleaseth and so indeed whatsoever authority is in the constant practice of the Kingdom or in the known and published Laws and Statutes it concludeth the Soveraignty to be fixed in the King and all the Subjects virtually united in the representative body of the Parliament to be obliged in obedience allegeance to the individual person of the King and I doubt not but our learned Lawyers can finde much more proofe then I do out of their Law to this purpose And therefore seeing divers supreme powers are not compatible in one State nor allowable in our State the conceit of a mixed Monarchy is but a foppery to prove the distribution of the supreme power into two sorts of governours equally indued with the same power because the supreme power being but one must be placed in one sort of governours either in one numericall man as it is in Monarchy or in one specificall kinde of men as the optimates as it is in Aristocracie or in the people as in Democracie but if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a mixed Monarchy you meane that this supreme power is not simply absolute quoad omnia but a government limited and regulated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we will not much quarrell with our Sectaries because His Majesty hath promised and we are sure he will performe it to govern his people according to the Lawes of this Land And therefore they that would rob the King of this right and give any part They deserve not to live in the Kingdom that diminish the supremacy of the King of his supreme power to the Parliament or to any of all his inferiour Magistrates deserve as well to be expelled the Kingdome as Plato would have Homer to be banished for bringing in the Gods fighting and disagreeing among themselves when as Ovid out of him saith Jupiter in Trojam pro Troja stabat Apollo Because as the Civilians say Naturale vitium est negligi quod communiter possidetur útque se nihil habere putet qui totum non habeat suam partem corrumpi patiatur dum invidet alienae and therefore the same Homer treating of our humane Government saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec multos regnare bonum rex unicus esto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Aristotle doth so infinitely commend where he disputeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Metaph. lib. 1. Statius Thebaid lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so doth Plato and all the wise Philosophers that followed after because as the Poâ—t saith Summo dulcius unum Stare loco sociâ—sque comes discordia regnis And as our own most lamentable experience sheweth what abundance of miseries happened unto our selves by this renting of the King's power and placing it in the hands of the Parliament and his own inferiour officers and as those sad Tragedies of Etheocles and Polynices Numitor and Amulius Romulus and Remus Antoninus and Geta and almost infinite more do make it manifest to all the world §. The two chiefest parts of the regal Government the four properties of a just war and how the Parliamentary faction transgresse in every property 4. HAving spoken of those assistants that should further and not hinder 4 The chiefest parts of the Regal government which are two Exod. 2. 14. the King in the Common-wealth it resteth that I should now speak of the chiefest parts of this goâ—ernment when Moses killed the Aegyptian that wronged the Israelite and the next day said unto the Hebrew that did injure his fellow Wherefore smitest thou him the oppressor answered Who made thee a Prince and a Judge over us and the people say unto Samuel we will have a King over us that our King may judge us and go out before us and 1 Sam. 8. 20. 2 Sam. 5. 2.
the Church where it forbiddeth the Bishops to reiterate baptisme to paint or grave on earth the Image of our Saviour L. 1. tit 5. L. 1. tit 7. Novel 123. c. 10. Novel 58. Novel 137. c. 6. And in the Novels the Emperour ordaineth Lawes of the creation and consecration of Bishops that Synods should be annually held that the holy mysteries should not be celebrated in private houses that the Bishops should speak aloud when they celebrate the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Eucharist and that the holy Bible should be translated into the vulgar tongue and the like And not onely these and the rest of the godly Emperours that succeeded them but also Ariamirus Wambanus Richaredus and divers other Kings of Spaine did in like manner And Charlemaigne who approved not the decisions of the Greekish Synod wrote a book against the same * Intituled A Treatise of Charlemaigne against the Greekish Synod touching Images whereby the King maintained himself in possession to make Lawes for the Church saith Johannes Beda of which Lawes there are many in a book called The capitulary Decrees of Charles the Great who as Pepin his predecessour had done in the City of Bourges so did he also assemble many Councils in divers places of his Kingdoms as at Mayns at Tours at Reines at Chaalons at Arles and the sixt most famous of all at Francfort where himself was present in person and condemned the errour of Felician and so other Kings of France and the Kings of our own Kingdom of England both before and after the Conquest as Master Fox plentifully recordeth did make many Lawes and Constitutions for the government of God's Church But as Dioclesian that was neither the best nor the happiest governour said The saying of â—â—oclesian most truly of the civil government that there was nothing harder then to râ—le well * That is to rule the Common-wealth so it is much harder to govern the Church of Christ therefore â—s there cannot be an argument of greater wisdome in a Prince nor any â—hiâ—g of greater safety and felicity to the Common-wealth then for him to make â—hâ—ice of a wise Council to assist him in his most weighty affaires saith Cornâ—lius Tacitus Tacitus Annâ— lib. 12. So all religious Kings must do the like in the government of the Church and the making of their Lawes foâ— that government foâ— God ouâ— of his great mercy to them and no less desire to have his people religiously governed left such men to be theiâ— supporters their helpers and advisers in the performance of these 〈◊〉 and â— pray you whom did Kings chuse for this business but whom Gâ—â— â—ad oâ—dâ—ned for that purpose for you may observe that although those Christian King and Emperours made their Lawes as having the supremacy and the 〈◊〉 â—â—r of 〈◊〉 â—eligion committed by God into their hands yet they dâ—d never make them that ever I could read with the advice counsel or direction of any of â—heir Peers or Lay Subjects but as David had Nathan and Gâ—◠〈◊〉 had Daniel and the rest of the Jâ—wish Kings and The good Kings Emperours made their Lawes for the government of the Church onely by the advâ—ce of their Clergy A good Law of Iâ—stinian Constit 123. Heathens had their Prophets onely and Priests to direct them in all matters of religion so those Chrâ—stian Kings and Princes took their Bishops and their Clergâ—e â—nâ—ly to be their counsellors and directors in all Church causes as it appeareth out of all the 〈◊〉 Authors and all the Histories that do write thereof and Justinian pâ—blishâ—d this Law that when any Ecclesiastical cause or matter was moved his Lay officers should not intermeddle with it but should suffer the Bishops to end the same according to the Canons the words are Si Ecclesiastâ—â—â—m negotium sit nullam communionem habento â—iviles magistratus cum â—a disceptatione sed religiosâ—ssimi Episcopi secundum sacros canones negotio finem imp nuntâ— â—or the good Emperour knew sull well that the Lay Senate neither â—nderstood what to determine in the points of faith and the government of Christ's Church nor was ever willing to do any great good or any special favour unto the Shepherds of Christ's flock and the â—eachers of the true religion because the Son of God had foâ—e-told it that the world should hate us that secular men and Lay Senatours should commonly oppose cross and shew all the John 15 19. Matth. 10. 16. spite they can unto the Clergy of whom our Saviour saith Behold I send you forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sheep in the midst of wolves Whence this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great distance between their dispositions being observed it grew into a Proverb that Laici semper infesti sunt Clericis And Doctour Meriton In a Sermon before King James observed this as one of the good savours the How the Laity love the Clergy A very memorable act Anno 39 Eliz. cap. 4. Clergie of England found from our Parliaments since the reformation when many men first began to be translated from the seat of the scornefull to sit in Moses chaire aâ—d to prescribe Lawes for Christ his Spouse to make an Act that all wandering beggars after their correction by the Constable should be brought to the Minister of the Paâ—ish to have their names registred in a Book and the Constable used to give to the Minister 2d for his paines for every one so registred but if he refused or neglected to do it the Statute saith he should be punished sive shillings for every one that should be so omitted where besides the honourable office I will not say to make the Minister of Christ a Bedle of the Beggars but a Register of the vagrants you see the punishment of one neglect amounteth to the reward of thirty labours therefore all the Christian Emperours and the wisest Kings considering this great charge that God had laid upon them to make wholesome Lawes and Constitutions for the government of his Church and seeing the inclinations of the Laity would never permit any of these Lay Elders and the Citizens of the world to usurp this authority to be the composers contrivers or assistants in concluding of any Ecclesiastical Law until the fences of God's vineyard were pulled down and the That the Laity should have no interest in making Laws for the Church wilde Boar out of the forrest the audacious presumption of the unruly Commonalty ventured either to govern the Church or to subdue their Prince since which incroachment upon the rights of Kings it hath never succeeded well with the Church of Christ and I dare boldly say it fidenter quia fideliter and the more boldly because most truly the more authority they shall gain herein the less glory shall Christ have from the service of his Church and the efore Be wise ô ye Kings And consider how any new Canons are to be made by our
The power of the King to call a Parliament to deny what he will and to dissolve it when he will Why our King suffereth BUt when all that hath been spoken cannot satisfie their indignation against true obedience and allay the heat of their rebellious spirits they come to their ultimum refugium best strength and strongest fort that although all others should want sufficient right to crosse the commands and resist the violence of an unjust and tyrannical Prince yet the Parliament that is the representative body of all his Kingdom and are intrusted with the goods estates and lives of all his people may lawfully resist and when necessity requireth take arms and subdue their most lawful King and this they labour to confirm by many arguments I answer that for the Parliament of England it is beyond my sphere and I being a transmarine member of this Parliament of Ireland I will only And whatsoever I speak of Parliaments in all this Discourse I mean of Parliaments disjoyned from their King and understand only the prevalent faction that ingrosseth and captivaâ—eth the Votes of many of the plain honest minded party which hath been often seen both in general Councels and the greatest Parliaments direct my speech to that whereof I am a Peer and I hope I may the more boldly speak my mind to them whereof I am a member and I dare maintain it that it shall be a benefit and no prejudice both to King and Kingdome that the Spiritual Lords have their Votes in this our Parliament For besides the equity of our sitting in Parliament and our indubitable right to vote therein and his Majesty as I conceive under favour be it spoken is obliged by the very first act in Magna Charta to preserve that right unto us when as in the Summons of Edw. 1. it is inserted in the Writ that * Claus 7. m. 3. dors Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari or tractari debet whatsoever affair is of publique concernment ought to receive publique approbation and therefore with what equity can so considerable a party of this Kingdom as are the Clergy who certainly cannot deserve to forfeit the priviledge of the meanest subjects and of Common men because they are more immediately the servants of the living God be denied the benefit of that which in all mens judgements is so reasonable a law and they onely be excluded from that interest which is common unto all I cannot â—ee yet I say that besides this our right while we sit in Parliaâ—â—nt this fruit shall alwayes follow that our knowledge and conscience shall never suffer us to vote such things against the truth as to allow that power or priviledge to our Parliament as to make Orders and Ordinances without the consent and contrary to the will of our King much lesse to leavâ—â— moneys and raise armes against our King for I conceive the Priviledges Priviledges of Parliament what they are of Parliament to be Privatae leges Parliament a proceeding accâ—â—ding to certain rules and private customes and lawes of Parliament which no member of the Houses ought to transcend whereas the other is Privatio legum a proceeding without Law contrary to all rules as if our Parliament had an omnipotent power and were more infallible than the Pope to make all their Votes just and their sayings truth I but to make this assertion good that the Parliament in some cases may justly take arms and make warre upon their justest King if they conceive him to be unjust it is alledged that although the King be Singulis major greater then any one yet he is Vniversis minor lesse then all therefore all may oppose him if he refuse to consent unto them I answer that the weaknesse of this argument is singularly well shewed Pag. 11. 38 39 40. in the Answer to the Observations upon some of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses and I will briefly contract the Answer to say the King is better than any one doth not prove him to be better then two and if his Supremacy be no more then many others may challenge as much for the Prince is Singulis major a Lord above all Knights and a Knight above all Esquires hs is singulis major though universis minor And if the King be universis minor then the people have placed a King not over but under them And Saint Peter doth much mistake in calling the King Supreme and they do 2 Pet. 2. 13. ill to petition when they might command and I am confident that no records except of such Parliaments as have most unjustly deposed their As Edw. Carnarvan and Richard the second Kings can shew us one example that the Parliament should have a power which must of necessity over-rule the King or make their Votes Law without and against the will of the King for if their Votes be Law without his consent what need they seek and sollicit his consent But the clause in the Law made 2. Hen 5. cited by his Majesty that it is of the Kings regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth That the King is universis major greater then all proved himself and the power which the Law gives the King to dissolve the Parliament and especially the words in the Preface of cap. 12. Vices to Hen. 8. where the Kings Supremacy not over single persons but over all the body politique is clearly delivered doth sufficiently shew the simplicity of this Sophistry and prove that the King being invested with all the power of God having given and the people having yielded their power to thâ—ir King they can never challenge any power but what they have derivâ—d from their king 2. Reason Sol. the people which is due to him as their King he is the onely fountain of all power and justice so that now they can justly claim no power but what is derived from him and therefore it is the more intolerable that any man should usurp the power of the King to destroy the King 2. They will say that Salus populi est suprema lex The good of the people is the chiefest thing that is aymed at in all government and the Parliament is the representative body of all the people therefore if any thing be intended contrary to the good of the people they may and ought lawfully to resist the same I answer and confesse that there is no wise King but will carefully provide for the safety of his people because his honour is included therein and his ruine is involved in their destruction but it is certain that this principle hath been used as one of our Irish mantles to hide the rebellion of many Traytors and so abused to the confusion of many Nations for there is not scarce any thing more facile then to perswade a people that they are not well 2 Sam 15. 4. governed as you may see in the example of Absolon who by
the Statutes of England 25 Edw. 3. c 2. And as you know it was one of the greatest Articles for which the Earl of Strafford was beheaded that he had actually leavied warre against the King The Nobles and Gentry Lords and Commons of both Houses of Parliament in all Kingdomes being convicted in their consciences with the truth of this Doctrine do in all their Votes and Declarations conclude and protest and I must believe them that all the leavies moneys and other provision of horse and men that they raise and arm are for the safety of the Kings person and for the maintenance of his Crown and Dignity Nay more then this the very Rebels in this our Kingdom of Ireland knowing how odious it is before God and man for subjects to rebell and take armes against their lawful King do protest if you will believe them that they are the Kings souldiers and do fight and suffer for their King and in defence of his Prerogatives But you know the old saying Tuta frequensque via est per amici fallere nomen The Devil deceiveth us soonest when he comes like an Angel of light and you shall ever know the true subjects best by their actions farre better then by their Votes Declarations or Protestations for Quid audiam verba cum videam contraria facta When men do come in sheeps cloathing and inwardly are ravening wolves when they come with honey in their mouths and gall in their hearts and like Joab with peace in their tongue and a sword in their hand a petition to intreat and a weapon to compell I am told by my Saviour that I shall know them by their works not their words And therefore as our Saviour saith Not he that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven So I say not he that cryeth peace peace is the son of peace but he that doth obey his Prince and doth most willingly whatsoever he commandeth or suffereth most patiently for refusing to do what he commandeth amisse This is the true subject Well to draw towards the end of this point of our obedience to our Soveraign That is when the Commonalty guide the Nobility and the Subjects rule their King Governour I desire you to remember a double story The one of Plutarch which tells us how the tayle of the Serpent rebelled against the head because that did guide the whole body and drew the tayle after it whithersoever it would therefore the head yielded that the tayle should rule and then it being small and wanting eyes drew the whole body head and all through such narrow crevises clefts and thickets that it soon brought the Serpent to confusion The other is of Titus Livius who Titus Livius Decad. 1. l. 2â— tells us that when the people of Rome made a factious combination to rebell against their Governours Menenius Agrippa went unto them and said that on a time all the members conspired against the stomack and alledged that she devoured with ease and pleasure what they had purchased with great labour and pain therefore the feet would walk no more the hands would work no more the tongue would plead no more for it and so within a while the long fast of the stomack made weak knees feeble hands dimme eyes a faltering tongue and a heavie heart and then presently seeing their former folly they were glad to be reconciled to the Stomack again and this reconciled the people unto their Governours I need not make any other application but to wish and to advise us all with the people of Rome to submit our selves unto our Heads that are our Governours lest if we be guided by the tayle we shall bring our selves with the Serpent unto destruction And to remember that excellent speech of S. Basil The people through ambition are fallen into grievous Anarchie whence it happeneth that all the exhortations of their rulers do no good no man hath any list to obey but every man would reign being swelled up with pride that springeth out of his ignorance And a little after he saith that some sit no lesse implacable Basilius de Spiritu Sancto c. ult scil 30. An argument of obedience drawn from the fifth Commandement and bitter examiners of things amisse then unjust and malevolent Judges of things well done so that we are more brutish then the very beasts because they are quiet among themselves but we wage cruel and bloody warres against each other And let us never forget that the Lord saith Honour thy father and thy mother and I must tell you that by father in this precept you must not onely understand your natural father but also the King who is yâ—â—◠〈◊〉 cal father and the father of all his subjects and the Priest your spiriâ—ual father and those likewise that in loco patris do breed and bring you up 1 Chron. 2. 24. and though natural affection produceth more love and honour uâ—to those fathers that begat us yet reason and religion oblige us more unto the King that is the common father of all and to the Priest that begat us unto Christ then unto him that begat us into the world for that without our new birth which is ordinarily done by the office of the Priest we were no Christians and as good unborn as unâ—hristened that is unregenerated and What we are and should be without King or Priest without the King that is Custos utriusque tabulae the preserver both of the publick justice and of the pure religion our fathers can neither bring us up in peace nor teach us in the faith of Christ and therefore if my father should plot any treason against the King or prove a Rebel against him I am bound in all duty and conscience to preferre the publick before the private and if I cannot otherwise avert the same to reveal the plot to preserve the King though it were to the losse of my father's life and therefore certainly they that curse that is speak evil of their King are cursed and they that rebel against him shall never have their dayes long in the land but shall through their own rebellion be soon cut off from the land of the living For mine own part I have often admired why the subjects of King Whether for the liberty of Subjects we can be warranted to rebell In the dicourse of the differences betâ—ixt King and Parliament CHARLES should raise any civil warre and especially turn their spleen against him If any say it is for their liberties I answer that I am confident His Majesty never thought to bring any the meanest of his subjects into bondage nor by an arbitrary government to reduce them into the like condition as the Peasants of France or the Boores of Germany or the Pickroes of Spain are as some do most fâ—lsely suggest but that they should continue as they have been in the dayes
Silks and Scarlet but with the extorted moneys and the plundered goods of the loyal subjects I hope it is not so in England Yet as Platina tells us that when the Guelphes and the Gibilines in the Platina's story of the Guelphs and Gibelines City of Papia were at civil discord and the Gibiliues promised to one Facinus Caius all the goods of the Guelphes if he assisted them to get the victory which he did and after he had subdued the Guelphes he seized upon the goods of both and when the Gibilines complained that he brake his Covenant to pillage their goods Caius answered that Themselves were Gibilines but their goods were Guelphs and so belonged unto him So both in England and Ireland I see the Parliament Forces and the Rebels I hope contrary to the will of the Parliament make little difference betwixt Papist and Protestant the well-affected and disaffected for they cannot judge of their affections but they can discern their estates and that is the thing which they thirst after Haud ignota cano But you will say These are miseries unavoidable accidents common to all warre when neither side can excuse all their followers I answer Woe be to them therefore that were the first suggesters and procurers of this warre and cursed be they that are still the incendiaries and blow the coales for the continuance of these miserable distractions I am sure his Majesty was neither the cause nor doth he desire the prolonging thereof for the least moment but as his royal Father was a most peaceable Prince so hath he shewed himself in all his life to follow him passibus aequis and to be a Prince of peace though as the God of peace is likewise a man of warre and the Lord of Hosts so this peaceable Prince when his patience is too much provoked can as you see change his pen for a sword and turn the mildnesse of a Lamb into the stoutnesse of a Lyon and you know what Solomon saith that The wrath of a King is the messenger of death especially when he is so justly moved to wrath And so much for the particulars of this Text. 2. Having fully seen the uglinesse of this sin you may a little view the 2. The punishment of these rebels greatnesse of the punishment for Although I must confesse we should be slow to anger slow to wrath yet when the Magistrate is disobeyed the Minister despised and God himself disclaimed it makes our hearts to bleed and our spirits angry within us yea though the King were as gentle and as meek as Moses the mâ—ckest man on earth and the Bishops as holy as Aaron the Saint of the Tirinus in â— Psal Lord yet such disobedience and rebellion would anger Saints for so Tirinus saith Irritaverunt They angred Moses in their Tents and Aaron the Saint of the Lord Nay more then this they angred God himself so farre that fire was kindled in his wrath and it burned to the bottom of hell And as these rebels were Lords and Levites Clergy and Laity so God did proportion their punishments according to their sinnes for the Levites that were to kindle fire upon Gods Altar and should have been more heavenly and those two hundred and fifty men which usurped the Office of the Priests He sent fire from heaven to devour them and the Nobility that were Lay-Lords the Prophet tells you The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the Congregation of Abiram A most fearful example of a just judgement for to have seen them dead upon the earth as the Aegyptians upon the shore had been very lamentable but to see the earth opening and the graves devouring them quick was most lamentable and so strange that we never read of such revenge taken of Israel never any better deserved and which is more Saint Basil saith quâ—d Basilius hom 9. descenderunt in infernum damnatorum they fell into the very pit of the damned which doleful judgement though they well deserved it yet I will leave that undetermined And if these rebels proceeding not so farre whatsoever they intended as to offer violence and to make an open warre against Moses were so hâ—avily plagued for the Embrio of their rebellion what tongue shall be able to expresse the detestation of that sin and the deserts of those Rebels that by their subtilty and cruelty would bring a greater persecution upon the Church then any that we read since the time of Christ and by a desperate disobedience to a most Gracious King would utterly overthrow a most flourishing State A rebellion and persecution the one against the King the other against the Church that in all respects can scarce be parallel'd from the beginning of the world to this very day And therefore except they do speedily repent with that measure of repentance as shall be in some sort proportionable to the measure of their transgression I fear God in justice will deal with them as he did with the Jews deliver them into the hand of their Enemies that will have no compassion upon young man or maiden old man or him that stoopeth for age or rather 2 Chron. 36 17. as he did with Pharaoh King of Aegypt deliver them up to a reprobate sense and harden their hearts that they cannot repent but in their folly and obstinacy still to fight against Heaven untill the God of heaven shall overthrow them with a most fearful destruction the which I pray God they may foresee in time and repent that they may prevent it that God may be still merciful unto us as he useth to be to those that love his Name And so much for the words of this Text. Now to Apply all in brief if God shall say to any Nation I will send The application of all them a King in my wrath and give them Lawes not good let them take heed they say not We will take him away by our strength for we have read that He hath authority to give us a King in his displeasure but you shall never read that we have authority to disobey him at our pleasure and to say Nolumus hunc regnare super nos or if any do let them know that he which set him up and setled him over them is able to protect him against them and they that struggle against him do but strive against God and therefore they have no better remedy then to pray to God whiâ—h hath the hearts of all Kings in his hand that he would as the Psalmist saith Give the King his judgements and his righteousnesse unto the King's Son that he would either guide his heart aright and direct his feet to the way of peace or as he hath sent him in his fury so he would take him away in his mercy But for our selves of these Islands we have a King and I speak it here in the sight of God and as I shall answer for what I say at the dreadful judgement
be a tumult And no marvel Because they received incouragement as we believed from their defence and no reproof that we found was made for this indignity offered unto the King But if I be constrained and in danger it is not enough for me that I am voted free and safe For if that which looks as like a tumult as that did or as the representation of my face in the truest Glasse is like my face doth come against me and incompasse me about though I may be perhaps in more safety yet I shall think my self in great fear and in no more security than His Majesty was at Edge-hill 3. Because as the viewer of the Observat hath very well exprest it No Act 3. Reason p. 7. of Parliament can prevail to deprive the King of His Right and Authority as an Attainder by Parliament could not bar the Title to the Crown from descending on King Hen. 7. Nor was an Act of Parliament disabling King Hen. 6. to re-assume the Government of his people of any force but without any repeal in it self frustrate and void 7. Rep. 14. Calvins case an Act of Parliament cannot take away the protection or the Subjects service which is due by the Law of Nature 11. rep Sur de la Wares case William de la Ware although disabled by Act of Parliament was neverthelesse called by Queen Elizabeth to sit as a Peer in Parliament for that it seems the Queen could not be barred of the service and counsel of any of Her Subjects 2. H. 7. 6. a Statute that the King by no non obstante shall dispence with it is void because it would take a necessary part of Government out of the Kings hand And therefore I see not how this Act can deprive the King of the service and counsel of all his Bishops and Clergy but that it is void of it self and needeth no repeal or if otherwise yet seeing that besides all this 13. of the Bishops were shut in prison when this Act passed and their protestation was made long before this time and it was so unduly framed so illegally prosecuted and with such compulsive threats and terrours procured to be passed I hope the wisdom of the next Parliament together with their love and respect to the Church and Church-men will nullifie the same CHAP. VI. Sheweth the Plots of the Faction to gain unto themselves the friendship and assistance of the Scots And to what end they framed their new Protestation How they provoked the Irish to rebell and what other things they gained thereby ANd thus the Sectaries of this Kingdom and the Faction in this Parliament have by their craft and subtilty prevailed to have all the chiefest impediments of their Design to be removed So now the hedge is broken down and all the Boars of the Forrest may now come into the vineyard to destroy the vine and to undermine the City of God But into their counsels let not my soul come 2. When they had taken away these stops and hinderances of their projects they were to recollect and make up the furtherances that might help 2. The furtherances of their Design were five to advance their Cause for the founding of their new Church and the establishing of their famous Democratical Government and popular Common-wealth And these I find to be principally five 1. The gaining of their Brethren of Scotland to become their fast and faithful friends 2. The framing of a Protestation to frighten the Papists and to insnare the simple to be led as they listed to prosecute their Design 3. The condemning of our late Canons as abominable in their judgement and inconsistent with their Religion 4. The appointing of a new Synod the like whereof was never heard in the Church since Adam to compose such Articles as they liked and to frame such Discipline as should be most agreeable to their own dispositions 5. The setling of a Militia a word that the vulgar knew not what it was for to secure the Kingdom as they pretended from those dangers that they feared that is from those Jacks of Lent and men of Clouts which themselves set up as deadly enemies unto the Church and State but indeed insensibly to get all the strength of the Realm into their own hands and their Confederates that so they might like the Ephori bridle the King and bring him as they pleased to abolish and establish what Laws and Government they should propose whereby perhaps he might continue King in Name but they in Deed. These were the things they aimed at and they effected the first three before they could be discryed and their Plots discovered but in the other two they were prevented when God said unto them as he doth unto the Sea Hitherto shalt thou go and no further here shalt thou stay thy proud waves And therefore I am confident and I wish all good Christians were so that their purposes shall never succeed nor themselves prosper therein while the World lasteth because God hath so mercifully revealed so much so graciously assisted our King and so miraculously not only delivered him from them but also strengthened him against them contrary to all appearing likely-hood to this very day which is a sufficient argument to secure our faith that we shall by the help of our God escape all the rest of their destructive Designs But to display their Banners to discover their Projects and to let the World see what they are and how closely and yet cunningly they went about to effect their work I will in a plain manner set down what I know and what I have collected from other Writings and from men that are fide digni for one mans eyes cannot see all things nor infallibly perceive the Mysteries of all particulars for to confirm the faithful Subjects in their due obedience both to God and their King and to undeceive the poor seduced people that they perish not in the contradiction of Corah 1. It is believed not without cause with far greater probabilities than a 1 The indeering of themselves unto the Scots Our Sectâ—â—ies the inviters of the Scots to England bare suspicion that our own Anabaptistical Sectaries and this Faction were the first inviters of those angry spirits that conceived some cause to be discontented and were glad of secret entertainers to enter into the bosom of this Kingdom Whatsoever those our Brethren of Scotland did I will bury it according to their Act in oblivion neither approving nor yet blameing them for any thing But for any Subject of England to enterchange Messages and to keep private intelligence with any that seem to be in Arms against their King and the invaders of his Dominions to animate them to come and advance forward to refuse their Soveraigns Service and the Oath of their fidelity which was tendered unto them and to hinder the Kings Souldiers to do their duties either by denying to go with him or refusing to fight for him when
big and their fancies are but Dreams fit for laughter and I brought these onely as Vinegar to be tasted and then to be spit out again CHAP. X. Sheweth the great Bug-bears that affrighted this Faction the four speciall means they used to secure themselves the manifold lyes they raised against the King and the two speciall Questions that are discussed about Papists 5. FOr the setling of the Militia and putting the whole Kingdom in a 5. The setling of the Militia posture of Defence as they termed it 1. They dreamed of a desperate Disease and 2. They devised an Emperical way to cure it 1. The Disease was a monstrous fear of Popery and the re-establishment 2. The disease of abolished superstitions in our Church to invade their consciences and of the Papists with fire and sword to waste their estaâ—es and to take away their lives and liberties and through that groundâ—â—sse fear they looked on the innocent Ceremonies that were established in the Church as dangerous Innovations and introductions to Idolatry And in the State they feared the practised wayes and endeavours to produce an arbitrary government by our advancing of a boundlâ—sse Prerogative even to the dispoyling of the Subject of his property and robbing him of the benefit of the laws these were their fears And the grounds of these fears were lying fictions and most scandalous detractions and defamations for their invented Letters that should come from Holland and from Denmark and some other places beyond the Seas where we were better believe them then go try whether they were true which informed them sometimes of a Fleet of Danes sometimes of another Nation that should come to assist the King for the setting up of Popery and the securing of himself in a tyrannical and arbitrary government over them and every day almost produced a discovery What terrible things frighted them of new treacheries against the Parliament what terrible things frighted them as the stable of Horses under ground for indeed they were invisible Horses such as Elisha's servant saw terrifying their guilty consciences and that of the Taylâ—rs in Moor-fields and the like horrid machinations that were to come against them I know not from whom and God knowes from whence which things how false they were time which is the mother of truth hath long agone made manifest and ridiculous to any man that is not bewitched with these lying fancies therefore lest these dreams of their distempered brains should be too soon descryed and so prove defective to produce their intended project they alledge The Queen is a Papist and I would to God they were so truly religious and void of â—ypocrisie in their profession as she most gracious Queen is in her religion then they say The Bishops are all Papists Deans and Prebends are of the same stamp and all the Kings Chapleins that were preferred by the Arch-Bishop were either close Papists or profest Arminians which are but Cosen-germans unto the other Arminianisâ—â— being but a Bridge to passe over unto Popery And with these and the like false slanders against the King Queen and Clergy they so bewitched most of their well meaning brethren of the same house and amazed all the simpler sort of people of this Kingdom with these fears and filled them with such jealousies with those Pamphlets that they caused to be printed and dispersed every where that they were at their wits end for fear of this lamentable alteration of their religion and deprivation of their liberties 2. The disease being thus spread like a Gangrene over all the parts of 2. The Cure the body of this Kingdom they like skilful Physitians devise the cure and that is the preparation of a Militia and this Militia they would have put into such hands as they pleased such as they might confide in and I wish the whole Kingdom knew who those men were and who they are that they do confide in for I know 1. Some of them are poor men of most desperate fortunes if Bank-rupters may be termed such 2. Others to be most factious and schimatical men addicted to Anabaptism and Brownism and other worser Sects as amongst the London Commanders Ven Manwaring Fowke Norington Bradly Best and the rest whereof there are twice as many schismatical and as it is conceived beggarly Sectaries as are right honest men among them and if we looked among their Lords and all the rest of their nomination throughout the Kingdom I doubt we shall find some of them to be just of the same condition And because the King to whose care and trust God had committed all the people of this Kingdom and not to them that are called by the King and chosen onely by men and that onely for this time and of whom he will require an account of the laws and religion whereof he made him keeper and defender and not of them thought most rightly that this Militia should be committed rather to such men as he might confide in as it was in the raign of Queen Elizabeth and His Father of ever blessed memory rather than to any that they should name which was to disâ—robe himself of all his regal power of the chiefest garland of his royal Prerogatives without which he could hold his Crown by no better a tenure then durante beneplacito and to put the sword out of his own hand into the hands of them that could not love him because they could not trust him as they alledged and what reason had he to trust them that were causelesly so distrustful of him they startled at this deniall And because the King of heaven had by this time opened the Kings eys God openeth the Kings eyes to let him see what hitherto he could hardly imagine that these men to whom he had granted for the good of his Kingdom so many Acts of grace and favour as never any King of England did before and had very graciously offered to commit to the hands of their own choosing so large a share of the Militia as might have rendred the whole kingdom most secure if security in a just and legall way had been all that they sought for had their intentions far otherwise then they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that not onely the government of the Church was intended to be alâ—eâ—ed and the Governours thereof destroyed but himself also waâ— hereby dis-robed of those rights which God and the Lawes of the Land had put into his hands and the Kingdom brought either into a base Tyranny or confused Anarchy when all things shall be done according to the arbitrary power of these factious and schismatical men therefore he utterly refused to grant their desires and most wisely withstood their design Whereupon these men put their heads together to consult how they How they strengthened themselves to make their orders fiâ—m without the King might strengthen themselves and make their ordinances firm and binding without the King and to that purpose having by their former doings gotten
they have made Which are all said to be exceedingly abused by them for 1. Against the King 2. Against the Subjects 3. Against the Law 1. Against the King it is registred to Posterity that they have proceeded besides many other things in all these particulars 1. They possesse all the Kings Houses Towns and Castles but what 1. Their proceedings against the King 1. Wrong Matâ—h â— 20. he gets by the strength of his sword and detain them from him so that we may say with our Saviour The Foxes have holes and the fowles of the air have nests but the King of England hath not an house allowed him by the Houses of Parliament wherein to put his head and they take not onely his Houses but also his rents and revenues and as I understood when I was in Oxford his very clothes and provision for his Table that seeing they could not take away his life by the sword they might murder him with cold or famin when he should not have the subsistâ—nce if they could hinder him to maintain life and soul together which is the shame of all shame and able to make any other men odious to all the The complaint to the House of Commons Pag. 19. world thus maliciously and barbarously to deal with their own most gracious King neither doth their malice here end but they with-hold the Rents of the Queen and seize upon the Revenues of our Prince which I assure them my Countrey-men takes in great scorn and I believe will right it with their lives or this Parliament-Faction shall redeem their errours with no small repentance when as we find no Prince of Wales was ever suffered by his Subjects to have such indignities offered him by the greatest Peers of England And here I cannot omit what Alderman Garraway saith of the reproach of Master Pym touching the maintaining of the Kings other Children which he professeth made his heart to rise and hoped it did so to many more Is our good King fallen so low that his Children must be kept Alderman Garraway his Speech for him It is worth our inquiry Who brought him to that condition We hear him complain that all his own Revenue is seized and taken from him Is not his Exchequer Court of Wards and Mint here his Customes too are worth somewhat and are his Children kept upon Alms How shall We and our Children prosper if this be not remedied And I pray God these things rise not up in judgement against them and this Nation but hereby they intended to verifie that disloyal Speech which One of them uttered in a Tavern and God will avert it from his Servant That they would make the King as poor as Job unlâ—sse he did comply Sober Sadnesse pag. 22. 2. Wrong with them 2. If any man which they like not attendâ— the Kings Person though he be his sworn servant or assist him in his just defence which he is bound to do by the Law of God and man yet he is presently voted and condemned for a Malâ—gnant Popish dis-affected evill Counsellour and an enemy to the State and that is enough if he be catched to have him spoyled and imprisoned at their pleasure nay my self was told by some of that Faction that because I went to see the King I should be plundered and imprisoned iâ— I were taken 3. Though they do solemnly professe that his Majesties personal safety 3 Wrong The Petition to his Majesty the 16. of July 1642. and his royaâ— honour and greatnesse are much dearer unto them then their own lives and fortunes which they do most heartily dedicate and shall most willingly imploy for the support and maintenance thereof yet for all this hearty Protestation they had at that very time as the King most accurately observeth in his Answer directed the Earl of Warwick to assist Sir John Hotham against him appointed their Generals and as Alâ—erman Non turpe est ab â—o vinâ—i qâ—em vincere est nefas neque et inhonestâ— aliquem submitâ—â— quem Deus super omnes extulit Dictum Armenii Pompeii Garraway testifieth raised ten thousand armed men out of London and the Neighbour-Countries before the King had seven hundred and afterwards though the King sent from Nottingham a gracious Message and sollicitation for Peace yet they supposing this proceeded from a dâ—ffidence of his own strength or being too confident of their own force sleâ—ghted the Kings Grace and most barbarously proceeded in the most hostile manner waged warre and gave battail against the Kings Army where they knew he was in his own Person and as one of their Preachers taught the Sunday before the Battail that they might with a good conscience as well kill the King horresco dicere as any other man so according to Captain Blagues directions as Judas taught the High-Priests servants we know what Troops and Regiments were most aimed at whereas they do most ridiculously say they have for the defence of his person sent many a Cannon-bullet about his eares which he did with that Kingly courage and Heroick magnanimity yeâ— and that Christian resolution and dependance on Gods assistance pass through that it shall be recorded to his everlasting honour and their indelible shame and reproach so long as the world endureth 4. They have most Disloyally and Traiterously spoken both privately 4 Wrong and publickly such things against his Majesty as would make the very Heathens tear them in pieces that should say the like of their Tyrannous Kings and such as I could not believe they proceeded from the mouth of a Christian against so Christian a King but that I find most of them were publickly uttered made known unto his Majesty and related by Sober sadness p. 3. â—he Viewer p. 4. His Majesties Declaration â—â—â—ssel in the supplement to Daniels History himself and those that were Ear-witnesses thereof as Horresco reserens that he was not worthy to be our King not fit to live that he was The Traitor that the Prince would govern better and that they dealt fairly with him they did not depose him as their fore-fathers had deposed Richard the second whom all the World knoweth to be most Traiterously Murdered and the whole progress of that Act whereby he was deposed is nothing else but the Scandal of that Parliament and an horrid treason upon the fairest relation of any Chronicle and the good Bishop of Carlile was not then affraid in open house to tell the Lords so to their faces and I would our Parliament men would read his Speech 5. They command their own Orders Ordinances and Declarations to 5. Wrong be Printed Cum privilegio and to be published in Publick throughout the whole Kingdom and they are not a little punished that neglect it and whatsoever Mâ—ssage Answer Declaration or Proclamation cometh from the King to inform his Subjects of the Truth of things and to undeceive his much seduced people they streightly forbid those to be
Printed and imprison if they can catch them all that publish them as they did many worthy Ministers in the City of London and in many other places of this Kingdom 6. They have publickly voted in their House and accordingly indeavoured 6. Wrong by Mâ—ssages to perswade our brethren of Scotland to joyn in their assistance with these grand Rebels to rebel against their Soveraign but I perswade my self as I said before that the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland are more Religious in themselves more Lâ—yal to their liege Lord and indeed wiser in all their actions then while they may live quietly at home in a happy peace to undertake upon the perswasions of Rebellious Subjects such an unhappy war abroad 7. It is remonstrated and related publickly that as if they had shaken 7. Wrong off all subjection and were become already a State Independent they have Treated by their agents with forraign States and do still proceed in that course which if true is such an usurpation upon Soveraignty as was never before attempted in this Kingdom and such a Presumption as few men know the secret mischiefs that may luâ—k therein 8. They suffer and licence their Pamphleters Pryn Goodwin Burges 8. Wrong Marshal Sedgwick and other emissaries of wickedness to publish such Treasons and Blasphemies and abominable Aphorisms As that thâ— negative vote of the King is no more then the dissent of one man the Affirmative vote of the King makes not a Law ergo the Negative cannot destroy it and the like absurd and sensless things that are in those Aphorisms and in Prins book of the Soveraign power of Parliament whereby they would deny the Kings power to hinder any Act that both the Houses shall conclude and so taking away those just prerogatives from him that are as Hereditary to him as his Kingdom compell him to assent to their conclusions for which things our Histories tell us that other Parliaments Why the two Spencers died have banished and upon their returns they were hanged both the Spencers the Father and the Son for the like presumption as among other Articles for denying this Prerogative unto their King and affirming Per aspertevid Ebsmere postnaâ—i p. 99. that if he neglected his duty and would not do what he ought for the good of the Kingdom he might be compelled by force to perform iâ— which very thing divesteth the King of all Soveraignty overthroweth Monarchy and maketh our government a meer Aristocracy contrary to the constitution of our first Kings and the judgment of all ages for we know full well from the Practise of all former Parliaments that seeing the three Pag. 48. States are subordinate unto the King in making Laws wherein the chiefest power consisteth they may propound and consent but it is still in the Kings power to refuse or raâ—ify and I never read that any Parliament man till now did ever say the contrary but that if there be no concurrence of the King in whom formally the power of making of any Law resideth ut in subjecto to make the Law the two Houses whose consent is but a requisite condition to compleat the Kings power are but a liveless convention like two Cyphers without a figure that of themselves are of no value or power but joyned unto their figures have the full strength of their places which is confirmed by the Viewer of the Observations out of 11. Hen. 7. 23. per Davers Polydore 185. Cowel inter verbo Praerog Sir Pag. 19 20 21. Thomas Smyth de republ Angl. l. 2. c. 3. Bodin l. 1. c. 8. For if the Kings consent were not necessary for the perfecting of every Act then certainly as The Letter to a Gentleman in Gloucestershire p. 3. another saith all those Bils that heretofore have passed both Houses and for want of the Royal assent have slept and been buried all this while would now rise up as so many Laws and Statutes and would make as great confusion as these new orders and ordinances have done And as the Lawyers tell us that the necessity of the assent of all three States in Parliament is such as without any one of them the rest do but Lamberts Archeion 271. Vid. the Viewer p. 21. lose their labour so Le Roy est assentus ceo faict un Act de Parliament and as another saith Nihil ratum habetur nisi quod Rex comprobarit Nothing is perfected but what the King confirmeth But here in the naming of the three States I must tell you that I find in most of our Writers about this new-born question of the Kings power a very great omission that they are not particularly set down that the whole Kingdom might know which is every one of them and upon this omission I conceive as great mistake in them that say the three States are 1. The King 2. The House of Peers Which be the three States of England 3. The House of Commons For I am informed by no mean Lawyer that you may find it upon the Rowls of Henry the fifth as I remember and I am sure you may find it Speed l 9. c. 19. p. 712. Anno. 1 Ric. 3. in the first year of Richard the third where the three States are particularly named and the King is none of them For it is said That at the request and by the assent of the three Estates of this Realm that is to say the Lords Spiritual the Lords Temporal and Commons of the Land Assembled it is declared that our said Soveraign Lord the King is the very undoubted King of this Realm Wherein you may plainly see the King that is acknowledged their Soveraign by all three can be none of the three but is the head of all three as the Dean is none of the Chapter but is Caput capituli and as in France and Spain so in England I conceive the three Estates to be 1. The Lords Spiritual that are if not representing yet in loco in the behalf of all the Clergy of England that till these Anabaptistical tares have almost choaked all the Wheat in Gods field were thought so considerable a party as might deserve as well a representation in Parliament as old Sarum or the like Borough of scarce twenty Houses 2. The Lords Temporal in the right of their Honor and their Posterity 3. The Commons that are elected in the behalf of the Conntrey Cities and Butroughs and what these three States consult and conclude upon for the good of the Church and Kingdom the King as the head of all was either to apprâ—ve or reject what he pleased And Joh. Beda advocate in the Court of Parliament of Paris saith p. 42. De jure Regum The Church is within the State made a part of the same and is subject to the Soveraign of the whole Territory being in France and England one of the three estates of the Kingdom whereof the King is head and superior aswel of the Clergy
as of the Laity And in the Act against leising makers being an old Statute of Scotland the Kings Counsel are said to be sworn in the presence of his Majesty and his three Estates and again it is repeated that the King and his three Estates do renew all Acts against leising-makers And though we find with some difficulty as the viewer of the Observations saith where the Parliament is said to be a Body consisting of King Lords and Commons ergo without the King there is no Parliament yet herein the King is not said to be one of the three States but the first and most principal part that constitutes the body of the Parliament But John Bodin that had very exactly learned the nature of our Parliament Pag 20. 25. H. 8. 21. both by his reading and conferring with our English Embassadour as himself confesseth saith The States of England are never otherwise assembled no more then they are in the Realms of France and Spain then by Parliament Writs and the states proceed not but by way of supplications and requests unto the King and the States have Bodin de repub l. 1. c. 8. no power of themselves to determine or decree any thing seeing they cannot so much as assemble themselves nor being assembled depart without express commandment from the King In all this and for all the search that I have made I find not the King named to be one but rather by the consequence of the discourse to be none of the three but as I said the head of all the three States for either the words of Bodin must be understood of two States in all the three Kingdoms which then had been more properly termed as we call them either the two House or the Lords and Commons or else they must be very absuâ—d because the three States if the King be one of them can not be said to be called by Parliament-Writs when as the King is called by no writ nor can he be said to supplicate unto himself or to have no power to depart without leave that is of himself Therefore it must needs follow that this learned man who would speak neither absurdly nor improperly meant by the three States 1. The Lords Spiritual 2. The Lords Temporal 3. The Commons of the Kingdom And the King as head of all calling them consulting concluding with them and dismissing them when he pleased And William Martyn saith King Henry the 1. at the same time 1114. devised and ordained the manner and fashion of a Court in Parliament appointing it to consist of the three States of which himself was the head so that his Laws being made by the consent of all were not disliked of any these are his words And I am informed by good Lawyers that you may find it in the preambles of many of our Statutes and in the body of Sâ—ch is the difference betwixt Queen Elizabeth's time and our Times Anno octavo Elizabethae c. 1. some other Statutes and in some Petitions especially one presented to Queen Elizabeth for the inlargement of one that was committed for a motion that he made for excluding the Bishops out of the House of Peers the three States are thus particularized and the Lords Spiritual are nominated the first of the three and are termed one of the greatest States of this Realm And this I conceive to be the right constitution of a Parliament Therefore now to cast off one of the three States and to cut off the head of all three by making the King but one of them that so both the King and the two Houses might be only co-ordinate when as indeed they are as in some respect concurrent so also subordinate unto Him as to their Head is such a change and alteration as would quite overthrow the fundamental constitution of the Government of this Kingdom and make our King if these men might have their will to have no more power than the Duke of Venice And to that end this Faction have by themselves and their Pamphleters The false grounds of the original of our Kings The Disclaimer p. 17 18 19. laid down such false grounds of the Orignal of our Kings as are exceeding derogatory to the Crown of England as that they are Kings by paction and covenant with their people which at first chose them and intrusted them with their Government and for the preservation of their Laws against the incroachments of the King and the making of new Laws as occasions required ordained the great Council which they call Parliament and which should have full power to restrain the King if he did abuse his Power and therefore the people may withdraw their trust when the Kings neglect their duty and nullify their faith unto their Subjects for Post morâ—em Maxâ—mi Constans postulaâ—us à Britannis But not a word in all the story that any one of the British Kings was electuâ— Anonymus MS. in Bibl. Oxon. qui scripsit Hist omnium regum qui regnaverunt in Anglia whosoever is indifferently read in Histories and the Chronicles of our Kingdom may easily find how falsly and maliciously they would make this free Monarchy to have been elective and to be a conditional Government because England France and Spain were parts and parcels of the Roman Empire and when the Emperours by reason of their intestine broyls at home could not look into the parts abroad the right Heir unto the Crown of Brittain assumed unto himself all the Royalty and power that the Emperour had over us and succeeded him not by any pact or Covenant with the people though not as then for some reasons without the request of the people but by that right which God and nature allowed unto Kings and was due either to the Roman Emperour or to any other absolute Monarch of any Nation as the old Chronicles of those times and the regaining of the Crown by Vortigern after that the people had Rebelliously rejected him and received but not elected his son Vortimer in his place do most sufficiently clear the case And therefore what Soveraign-Power soever is due to any absolute Monarch and what obedience soever Saint Paul affirmeth to be due to the Roman Emperours that then ruled over us or Saint Peter commandeth to be given to other Kings the same is in all things due to our Kings ever since Aurelius Ambrosius that succeded Vortigern or if you will not ascend so high yet without all contradiction ever since William the Conquerour whom you cannot say was elected nor any other that succeeded him and therefore cannot be debarred or denied any of those Prerogatives and Soveraignties that belong unto the most absolute Monarch save only in those things which of their special grace and favour they granted unto their Subjects and bound themselves at their Coronation to perform those promises of Priviledge and freedom which they made unto them Pag 17 18 19 20. and that distinction of the disclaimer
twentieth part and they may for ought we know set down the tenth for the twentieth and if they may legally do this we can see no reason why by the same Rule they may not take the fifteenth tenth or half our goods for the same purpose and so they avouch they may but most untruly For it was never known till this present Parliament that an Ordinance of both Houses without the consent nay against the Command of the King can bind the free Subjects of England which do not then renounce their lâ—yalty to their King when they make choice of them to be their Procurators in the Parliament in their lives liberties or estates and yet these men not only bestow our monies as they please as they did six thousand pound to their own Speaker and the places of Command and great Profit more than all the Revenues of their lands come to upon themselves and upon their children and friends as upon Sir John Hotham the Lord Rochford Lord Say Lord Brook Hampden Brereton Fine the Earl of Essex and abundance more but they do also seize upon our estates and thus take our goods under the colour of maintaining this War to inrich themselves and their children And for the levying of this or what other part they please they ordain their friends and appoint their Collectors to distrain for the sum assessed and to sell the distress and if no distress can be found then the persons of these notable offenders that deny their goods thus illegally to be taken from them are to be imprisoned and their families to be banished from their habitations And to make the World believe how justly and sufficiently legal they could do this they made another Ordinance for the inhabitants of the Counties of Northampton Rutland Derby c. to pay the twentieth part and to be assessed by the Assessors that they name in imitation of the Statute lately made for the four hundred thousand pound and it is more than probable that this proceeding is but the praeludium of the like exaction to be extended when their need requireth to all the other parts of the Kingdom which is a most miserable course and injustice not to be paralleld to cast themselves into a necessity of getting money to maintain an impious War against their King and then out of that necessity to compel their fellow-Subjects and those peaceable men that do abominate this War to maintain the same yea and to fight in the same to kill men against their consciences in despite of their teeth or if they resuse to do it to send or at least to permit a party of Horse Dragooneers and other strength to go to fetch their Money Plate or other goods as if they were the goods of the deadly enemies of the Common-wealth and this for none other reason but for that the owners thereof are good Subjects to the King and not well-affected to their unjust and ungodly proceedings But let me perswade all men that do fear God still to suffer any thing which they cannot avoid from the violence of these wicked men rather than to contribute any thing unto them to further such abominable courses as they prosecute against the Law of God and man Because the Lord commandeth us to fear none of those things that we shall suffer but to stand in Rev. 2. 10. our integrity unto death and we shall be crowned with the crown of life 3. They have discharged the Apprentices and servants from their Masters 3. How they discharged the Apprentices compelledthem to fight services and have either compelled or perswaded them to serve in their Army against the King and that without the consent and against the will of their Masters and Dames yea sometimes against the commands of their own Parents which I speak from their own mouths 4. They have imprisoned very many hundreds of most able and most 4. How they imprisoned our men without cause honest men even so many that the Prisons are not able to contain them but they are fain to consecrate the greatest houses in London to become Prisons as the Bishop of London's house Eâ—y-house Winâ—hester-house Lambeth-house Crosby-house the Savoy and the like And this they do for none other cause but either for performing the duties of their places and discharging their obedience to his Majesty as the last Lord Maior Gurney which deserved rather to be commended than committed if we believe many that were present at his Tryal or petitioning unto them as Sir George Bynion and Captain Richard Lovelace and Sir William Boteler of Kent because they did not therein flatter and approve their present Complaint p. â— wicked courses or intending to petition unto the King for relief of these lamentable distresses as those Gentlemen of Hertford-shire and Westminster or for being as they conceived disaffected unto their disloyall Orders A strange thing and injustice beyond prehdent not the like to found among the Pagans That where no Law can condemn a man for his affections when no action is committed against Law men shall be robbed of their estates and adjudged for Malignants which is also a crime most general and without the compasse of any Statute and then for this new-created sin to be condemned and imprisoned and therein to remain without Tryal of his offence perhaps as long as the Archbishop of Canterbury And this wonder is the rather to be wondered at because it is the sense of both Houses if we may believe Master Pym That it is against the M Pym in his Speech at the Gaild hall Rules of Justice that any man should be imprisoned upon a general Charge when no particulars are proved against him For never Charge can be more general than to be ill-affected or a Malignant or a man not to be confided in whereof you find ten thousand in the City of London and many hundred thousands in the Kingdom and therefore when we find so many persons of Honour and Reputation imprisoned only upon this surmise without any other particular Charge so much as once suggested against them as was the Lord of Middlesex the Lord of Portland and abundance more and detained in prison because they were ill-affected in that they have not contributed to the maintenance of this War we see how insensibly they have accused themselves to have laid this insupportable punishment beyond the desert of the transgressors and against the Rules of all Justice and how they have forgotten their Protestation and exceedingly infringed the liberty of the Subjects whereof they promised to be such faithful Procurators CHAP. XIII Sheweth the proceedings of this Faction against the Laws of the Land the Priviledges of Parliament transgressed eleven special wayes 3. FOr the Laws of our Land which are either private as those chiefly 3. Their proceedings against the Laws which belong unto the Parliament and are called the Priviledges of Parliament or Publick which are Inheritance of every Subject you shall find
Edward the first Si disputatio oriatur justiciarii non possunt cam interpretari sed in dubiis obscuris Domini regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas câ—m ejus sit interpretari Citatur à Domino Elism in post-nati p. 108. cujus est condere If any Dispute doth arise the Judges cannot interpret the same but in all obscure and doubtful questions the interpretation and the will of the King is to be expected when as he that makes the Law is to be the expounder and interpreter of the Law Yet they have challenged and assumed to themselves such a power that their bare Vote without any Act of Parliament may expound or alter a known Law which if it were so they might make the Law as Pighius saith of the Scripture like a nose of wax that may be fashioned and bended as they pleased but we do constantly maintain That the House of Commons hath no power to adjudge of any point or matter but to inform the Lords what they conceive and the House of Peers hath the power of Judicature which they are bound to do according to the Rules of the known established Laws and to that end they have the Judges to inform them of those cases and to explain those Laws wherein themselves are not so well experienced though now they sit in the House for cyphers even as some Clergy did many times in the Convocation and if any former Statute be so intricate and obscure that the Judges cannot well agree upon the right interpretation thereof then as in explaining Poynings Act and the like either in England or Ireland the makers of the Act that is the King and the major part of both Houses must explain the same 3 In composeing and setting forth new laws 3. Whereas we never knew that the House had any power to make Orders and Ordinances to bind any besides their own Members to observe them as Laws yet they compell us to obey their Orders in a stricter manner than usually we are injoyned by Law and this course to make such binding Ordinances as they do to carry the force though not the name of an Act of Parliament or a Law is a mighty abuse of our Laws and Liberties for Sir Edward Cook tells us plainly That as the constitution of our Government now standeth neither the House of Commons and King can make any binding Law when the Peers dissent nor â— Cook in the Preface of the Stat. of Westminster the second Lamberts Archeion 271. the Lords and King when the Commonalty dissenteth nor yet both Houses without the Kings consent but all three King Peers and Commons must agree before any coactive Law can be composed Nay more it is sufficiently proved that Dare â—us populâ— or the legislative power being one principall end of Regall Authority was in Kings by the Law of Nature while they governed the people by naturall equity long before municipall Laws or Parliaments had any beeing For as the Poet saith Remo cum fratre Quirinus Jura dabat populo Hoc Priami gestamen erat cum jura vocatis More daret populis Because this was the custom of the Kings of Scythia Assyria Aegypt c. long before Moses and Pharonaeus when Municipall Laws first began to give Laws unto their people according to the Rules of Naturall equity which by the Law of Nature they were all bound to observe And though some Kings did graciously yield and by their voluntary oathes for themselves and their successors bind themselves may times to stricter limits than were absolutely requisite as William Rufus King Stephen Henry the fourth Richard the third and the like granted many Priviledges perhaps to gain the favour of their Subjects against those which likely had a better Title to the Crown than themselves or it may be to satisfie their people as the guerdon or compensation for the sufferance of some fore-passed grievances as Henry the first Edward the second Richard the second and the like yet these limitations being agreeable to equity and consistent with Royalty and not forcibly extracted ought in all truth and reason to be observed by them And hence it is that the Kings of this Realm according to the oathes and promises which they made at their Coronation can never give nor repeal any Law but with the assent of the Peers and People But though they have thus yielded to make no Laws nor to repeal any Laws without them yet this voluntary concession of so much grace unto the people doth no waies translate the legislative power from the King unto his assistants but that it is formaliter and subjectivè still in the King and not in them else would the government of this Kingdom be an Aristocracy or Democracy and not a Monarchy because the Supreme power of making and repealing Laws and Governing or judging decisively according to those Laws are two of those three things that give being to each one of these three sorts of Government Therefore the King of England being an absolute Monarch in his own Cassan in catal gloria mundi 2 2 Ed. 3. 3 pl. 25. Vid. The view of a Printed book intituled Observations c. Where this point is proved at large p. 18 19 21 22. Kingdom as â—assaneus saith and no man can deny it the Legislâ—tive power must needs reside solely in the King ut in subjecto proprio and the consent of the Lords and Commons is no sharing of that power but only a condition yielded to be observed by King in the use of that power and so both the Oath of Supremacy and the form of all our ancient Statutes wherein the King speaks as the Law-maker do most evidently prove the same unto us Le Roy voit Neither durst any Subjects in former times either assume such a power unto themselves or deny the same unto their King for you may find how the House of Commons denying to pass the Bill for the Pardon of the Clergy which Henry the 8th granted them when they were all charged to be in a Premunire unless themselves also might be included within the pardon received this answer from the King that He was their Soveraign Lord and would not be compelled to shew his mercy nor indeed could they compel him to any thing else but seeing they went about to restrain him of his Liberty he would grant a pardon unto his Clergy by his great Seal without them though afterwards of his own accord he signed their pardon also which broughâ— great commendation to his judgment Sir Rich. Bakâ—r in viâ—a Hen. 8. to deny it at first when it was demanded as a right and to grant it afterward when it was received as of grace And yet the denyal of their assent unto the King is more equitable to them and less derogatory to him then to make orders without him And this manner of compulsion to shew grace unto themselves is more tolerable than to force him to disgrace
his natural capacity that is 2. Reason as he is Charles the Son and Heir apparent of King James when as homage cannot be done to any King in his politique capacity the body of the King being Coke l. 7. Calvin's case invisible in that sence 3. Because in that case it is expresly affirmed that the King holds the Kingdom 3. Reason of England by birth-right inherent by descent from the bloud-royal therefore to shew how inseperable this right is from the next in bloud Hen. the 4. though he was of the bloud-royal being first cozen unto the King and had the Crown resigned unto him by Rich. the 2. and confirmed unto him by Act of Speed l. 9. c. 16. Parliament yet upon his death-bed confessed he had no right thereunto as Speed writeth 4. Because it was determined by all the Judges at the Arraignment of Watson 4. Reason 1. Jacobi and Clerke that immediately by descent his Majesty was compleatly and absolutely King without the Ceremony of Coronation which was but a Royal Ornament and outward Solemnization of the descent And it is illustrated by Hen. 6. Speed l. 9. c. 16. that was not crowned till the ninth year of his Reign and yet divers were attainted of High Treason before that time which could not have been done had The right heir to the kingdom is King before he is crowned Why the peoples consent is asked 2. Respect he not been King And we know that upon the death of any of our Kings his Successor is immediately proclaimed King to shew that he hath his Kingdom by descent and not by the people at his Coronation whose consent is then asked not because they have any power to deny their consent or refuse him for their King but that the King having their assent may with greater security and confidence rely upon their loyalty 2 As the Kings of Israel had full power and authority to make war and conclude peace to call the greatest Assemblies as Moses Joshua David Jehosaphat and the rest of the Kings did to place and displace the greatest Officers of State as Solomon placed Abiathar in Sadoâ—'s room and Jehosaphat appointed 2 Chron. 19. 11 The absolute authority of the kings of England Coke 7 rep fol. 25. 6. Polyd. Virgil. lib 11. Speed Stow c. Amariah and Zebadiah rulers of the greatest Affaires and had all the Militia of the Kingdom in their hands so the Kings of England have the like for 1. He onely can lawfully proclaim war as I shewed before and he onely can conclude peace 2. There is no Assembly that can lawfully meet but by his Authority and as the Parliament was first devised and instituted by the king as all our Historians write in the life of Henry the first so they cannot meet but by the king's Writ 3. All Laws Customs and Franchises are granted and confirmed unto the people by the King Rot. Claus 1. R. 2. n. 44. 4. All the Officers of the Realm whether Spiritual or Temporal are chosen Smith de repub Angl. l. 2. c. 4. c. 5. and established by him as the highest immediately by himself and the inferiour by an authority derived from him 5. He hath the sole power of ordering and disposing all the Castles Forts The absurdities of them that deny the Militia to the King and strong Holds and all the Ports Havens and all other parts of the Militia of this kingdom or otherwise it would follow that the king had power to proclaime war but not to be able to maintain it and that he is bound to defend his subjects but is denied the meanes to protect them which is such an absurdity as cannot be answered by all the House of Commons 6. The kings of Israel were unto their people their honour their Soveraigns their life and the very breath of their nostrils as themselves acknowledge and so the kings of England are the life the head and the authority of all things that be done in the Realm of England supremam potestatem merum imperium Smith de Repub l. 2. Cambden Britan p. 132. apud nos habentes nec in Imperii clientela sunt nec investituram ab alio accipientes nec prâ—ter Deum superiorem agnoscentes and their Subjects are bound by Oath to maintain the kings Soveraignty in all causes and over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil and that not onely as they are singularly considered but over all collectively represented in the body politick for by sundry divers old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the world governed by one supream head and king having the dignity and royal In the Preface to a Stat. 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12 estate of the Imperial Crown of the same unto whom a body politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spiritualty and temporalty have been bounden and owen to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience 3. As the duty of every one of the kings of Israel was to be custos utriusque tabulae to keep the Law of God and to have a special care of his Religion and 3 Respect then to do justice and judgment according to the Law of nature and to observe all the judicial Laws of that kingdom so are the kings of England obliged to discharge the same duties 1. To have the chiefest care to defend the faith of Christ and to preserve the The duty of the kings of England honour of Gods Church as I shewed before 2. To maintain common right according to the rules and dictates of Nature And. 3. To see the particular Laws and Statutes of his own kingdom well observed amongst his people To all which the king is bound not onely virtute officii in respect of his office but also vinculo juramenti in respect of his Oath which enjoyneth him to guide his actions not according to the desires of an unbridled will but according to the tyes of these established Laws neither do our Divines give any further liberty to any king but if he failes in these he doth offend in his duty 4. As the kings of Israel were accountable for their actions unto none but 4 Respect Psal 51. 4. onely unto God and therefore king David after he had committed both murder and adultery saith unto God Tibi soli peccavi as if he had said none can call me to any account for what I have done but thou alone and we never read that either the people did call or the Prophets perswaded them to call any of their The kings of England accountable for their actions only to God I Reason Smith de repub l. 1. c. 9. 2 Reason most idolatrous tyrannical or wicked kings to any account for their idolatry tyranny or wickedness even so the kings
of England are accountable to none but to God 1. Because they have their Crown immediately from God who first gave it to the Conquerour through his sword and since to the succeeding kings by the ordinary means of hereditary succession 2. Because the Oath which he takes at his Coronation binds him onely before God who alone can both judge him and punish him if he forgets it 3. Because there is neither condition promise or limitation either in that 3 Reason Oath or in any other Covenant or compact that the king makes with the people either at his Coronation or at any other time that he should be accomptable or that they should question and censure him for any thing that he should do 4. Because the Testimony of many famous Lawyers justify the same truth 4 Reason for Bracton saith if the king refuse to do what is just satis erit ei ad poenam quòd Dominum expectet ultorem The Lord will be his avenger which will be punishment enough for him but of the kings grants and actiâ—ns nec privatae personae nec justiciarii debent disputare And Walsingham maketh mention of a Letter Bracton fol. 34. a. b. apud Lincol anno 1301. written from the Parliament to the Bishop of Rome wherein they say that certum directum Dominium à prima institutione regni Anglia ad Regem pertinuit the certain and direct Dominion of this Kingdom from the very first institution thereof hath belonged unto the King who by reason of the arbitrary or free prceminence of the royal dignity and custome observed in all ages ought not to answer before any Judge either Ecclesiastical or Secular Ergo neither before Ex l bera praeeminentia the Pope nor Parliament nor Presbytery 5. Because the constant custome and practice of this kingdom was ever such 5. Reason that no Parliament at any time sought to censure their king and either to depose him or to punish him for any of all his actions save onely those that were called in the troublesome and irregular times of our unfortunate Princes and were No legitimate and just Parliment did ever question the kings of England for their actions swayed by those that were the heads of the most powerful Faction to conclude most horrid and unjustifiable Acts to the very shame of their judicial authorities as those factious Parliaments in the times of Hen. 3. king John Rich. 2. and Hen. 4. and others whose acts in the judgment of all good authors are not to be drawn into examples when as they deposed their king for those pretended faults whereof not the worst of them but is fairly answered and all thirty three of them proved to be no way sufficient to depose him by that excellent Heningus c. 4. p. 93. Civilian Heningus Arnisaeus And therefore seeing the Institution of our kings is not onely by Gods Law but also by our own Laws Customs and practice thus agreeable to the Scripture kings they ought to be as sacred and as inviolable to us as the kings of Israel were to the Jews and as reverently honoured and obeyed by us as both the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul advise us to honour and obey the king CHAP. V. Sheweth how the Heathens honoured their Kings how Christ exhibited all due honour unto Heathen and wicked Kings how he carried himself before Pilate and how all the good Primitive Christians behaved themselves towards their Heathen persecuting Emperours 2. WE finde that not onely the Jews that were the people of God a royal Priesthood that had the Oracles of God and therefore no wonder 2. The Heathens Persae quidem olim aliquid coeleste atque divinum in regibus inesse statuebant Osorde Instit regis l 4. p. 106. Justin l. 4 Herodot l. 8. What great respect men in former times did bear unto their kings that they were so conformable in their obedience to the will of God but the Gentiles also that knew not God knew this by the light of nature that they were bound to yield all honour unto their kings For Quintus Curtius tells us that the Persians had such a divine estimation and love unto their king that Alexander could not perswade them either for fear or reward to tell him where their king was gone or to reveale any of his intentions or to do any other thing that might any ways prejudice the life or the affairs of their king And Justin tell us that the Sicilians did bear so great a respect unto the last Will and Testament of Anaxilaus their deceased king that they disdain not to obey a slave whom he had appointed Regent during the minority of his son And Herodotus saith that when Xerxes fled from Greece in a vessel that was so ful of men of war that it was impossible for him to be saved without casting some part of them into the Sea he said O yee men of Persia let some among you testifie that he hath care of his King whose safety is in your disposition then the Nobility which accompanied him having adored him did cast themselves into the Sea till the vessel was unburthened and the King preserved And I fear these Pagans will rise in judgement to condemn our Nobility that seek the destruction of their King And the Macedonians had such a reverent opinion of their King that being foyled in war before they returned again to the battle they fetched their cradle wherein their young King lay and set him in the midst of the Camp as supposing Justin l. 7. that their former misfortune proceeded because they neglected to take with them the good augure of their King's presence And Boëmus Aubanus speaking of the Aegyptian Kings saith that they have so much good will and love from all men ut non solùm sacerdotibus sed etiam singulis Aegyptiis major Aubanus de Africa l. 1. p. 39. Reges divinos love genitos à love nutritos Homerus Hesiodus appellarunt regis quà m uxorum filiorúmque aâ—t aliorum principum salutis inesset cura that not onely the Priests but also the Aegyptians have a greater care of the safety of their King then of their wives or children or any other Princes of the Land And the same Author describing the manner how the Tartars create their King saith the Princes Dukes Barons and all the people meet then they place him that is to be their King on a Throne of gold and prostrating themselves upon the ground they cry with an unanimous and loud voice Rogamus volumus praecipimus ut domineris nobis We intreat you and beseech you to reign over us and he answereth If you would have this of me it is necessary that you should be obedient to do whatsoever I shall command you when I call you to come whethersoever I shall send you to go whomsoever I shall command you to kill to do it immediately without fear and to commit
professed in Q. Elizabeth's times that was established by the Lawes justified by the paines and confirmed by the bloud of so many worthy men and faithful Martyrs but a new religion first hatched in Amsterdam then nourished in New-England and now to be transplanted into this Kingdom 3. Who are the persons that are imployed in this war he first of all that 3. Meet Members is the more disloyal because he was a person of honour that had so much honour conferred upon him by His Majesty and so much trust reposed in him and would notwithstanding prove so unthankful as to kick with his heeles against his Master and so follow whom you know passibus aequis whose example any other man that were not rob'd of his understanding would make a remora to retain him from rebellion and what are the other heads but a company either of poor needy and mean condition'd Lords and Gentlemen Who the Rebels are and what manner persons they be or discontented Peers that are misled or such factious Sectaries whose blind zeal and furious malice are able to hurry them headlong to perpetrate any mischief for their Captains and their Officers I believe they fight neither for the Anabaptists creed nor against the Romane faith nor to overthrow our Protestant Church but for their pay for which though they cannot be justified to take their hire for such ill service to rebel against their King and to murder their innocent brethren Yet are they not so bad as their grand Masters and for their common Souldiers I assure my self many of them fight against their wills many seduced by their false Prophets others inticed by their factious Masters and most of them compelled to kill their brethren against their wils and therefore in some places though their number trebled the Kings yet they had rather run away then fight and what a miserable and deplorable case is this when so many poor soules shall be driven unto the Devil by Preachers and Parliament against their wills 4. If you consider quâ authoritate by what authority they wage this war 4. The supreme authority they will answer by the Authority of Parliament and that is just none at all because the Parliament hath not the supreme authority without which the war is not publique nor can it be justified for a war is then justifiable when there is no legal way to end the controversie by prohibiting farther appeales which cannot be but onely betwixt independent States and several Princes that Albericus Gentilis de jure belli l. 1. c. 2. Subjects can never make a lawful war against their King have the supreme power in their own hands and are not liable to the censure of any Court which power the Parliament cannot challenge because they are or should be the King 's lawful Subjects and therefore cannot be his lawful enemies but they will say Master Goodwin Burroughs and all the rest of our good men zealous brethren and powerful Preachers do continually cry out in our eares it is bellum sanctum a most just and holy war a war for the Gospel and for our Lawes and Liberties wherein whosoever dies he shall be crowned a Martyr I answer that for their reward they shall be indeed as Saint Augustine saith of the like Martyres stultae Philosophiae when every one of them may Res dura ac plena pericli est regale occidisse genus be indicted at the bar of God's justice for a felo de se a Malefactour guilty of his own untimely death and for their good Oratours that perswade them to this wickednesse I pray you consider well what they are men of no worth rebellious against the Church Rebels against the King factious Schismaticks of In what condition their Preachers are and of what worth no faith of no learning that have already forfeited their estates if they have any and their lives unto the king and will any man that is wise hazard his estate his life and his soul to follow the perswasions of these men my life is as deare to me as the Earle of Essex his head is to him and my soul dearer and I dare ingage them both that if all the Doctors in both Vniversities and all the Divines within the kingdome of England were gathered together to give their judgement of this War there could not be found one of ten it may be as I beleive not one of twenty that durst upon his conscience say this war is lawful upon the Parliament side for though these Locusts that is the German Scottish It is contrary to the doctrine of all the Protestant Church for Subjects to resist their king and the English puritane agreeing with the Romane Jesuite ever since the reformation harped upon this string and retained this serpentine poison within their bosome still spitting it forth against all States as you may see by their bookes Yet I must tell you plainly this doctrine of Subjects taking up armes against their lawful King is point blanck and directly against the received doctrine of the Church of England and against the tenet of all true Protestants and therefore Andreas Rivetus Professor at Leyden writing against a Jesuite Paraeus in Rom. 13. Boucher l. 2. c. 2. Kecâ—erm Syst pol. c. 32. Jun. Bruâ— q. 2. p. 56. Bellar. de laic c. 6. Suar. de fid cathol c. 3. Lichfield l. 4. 19. sect 19. Field l. 5. c. 30. that cast this aspersion upon the Protestants that they jumpe with them in this doctrine of warring against and deposing kings saith that no Protestant doth maintain that damnable doctrine and that rashness of Knox and Buchanan is to be ascribed praefervido Scotorum ingenio ad audendum prompto Juel and Bilson and all the Doctors of the Church are of the same minde and Lichfield saith no Orthodox father did by word or writing teach any resistance for the space of a thousand yeares and Doctor Field saith that all the worthy fathers and Bishops of the Church perswaded themselves that they owed all duty unto their kings though they were Hereticks and Infidels and the Homilies of the Church of England allowed by authority do plainly and peremptorily condemne all Subjects warring against their King for Rebels and Traytors that do resist the ordinance of God and procure unto themselyes damnation and truely I beleive most of their own consciences tell them so and they that thinke otherwise I would have them to consider that if they were at a banquet where twenty should aver such a dish to be full of poyson for every one that would warrant it good would'st thou venture to eate it and hazard thy life in such a case O then consider what it is to hazard thy soule upon the like termes So you see the justness of the War on the Parliament side But. 1. On the Kings side it cannot be denied but his cause is most just for his own defence for the maintenance of the
that e're long the King shall have but few Nobility when not onely the Mechanicks and Rusticks will all cry out against this Lordlinesse and say as they did in the rebellion of Jack Cade and Wat Tyler When Adam delv'd and Eve span Who was then the Gentleman And why should we now indure so many titles of vanity and so many vain honours to vapour it over us but the Puritan Clergy also seeing themselves deprived of their due honour and made all equall all as base as Jeroboams Priests will be apt enough to blow up this conceit and to put it into the Creed of all the vulgar that God made us all equall and to be Lords is but to be tyrants over their Brethren and the Presbytery whose pride could not obey the authority of their Bishops will not abide the superiority of any Lords but if they cannot Lord it themselves will be sure to take away the Lordship from all others And therefore if the Nobility be not wiser then to lay our honours in the dust as I see some about his Majesty that would faine be the Priests to bury it which meere policy though they wanted piety should prohibit they shall find that Jam tua res agitur paries cùm proximus ardet Virgil. Aeneid l. 1. When our Cottages are burnt their next Palaces shall not escape the fire but through our sides their Honours shall be killed and buried without honour 3. Jus legitimandi the right of legitimation belongs unto the King without 3. Jus legitimandi which legitimation the Lawyers tell us that as the world now standeth a mighty emolument would happen unto the Crown if the King granted not this grace to them that want it 4. Jus appellationes recipiendi the right of taking notice of causes and of judging 4. Ius appellationes recipiendi Act. 25. 11. the same by the last appeale definitively doth alwayes belong to the supreme Majesty because that as Saint Paul appealed unto Caesar so the last appeale is to the highest Soveraigne from whom there lyeth none appeale but onely to him that shall judge all the Judges of the earth 5. Jus restituendi in integrum the right to restore men attainted or banished 5. Honores restituendt or condemned to death unto their Country wealth and honour is likewise a part of the royall right So Osorius saith that Immanuel King of Portugall restored Osorius de rebus Imman p. 6. James son of Fernandus and his brother Diâ—nysius and others unto their forfeited honours and so not â—nely the Scripture sheweth how David pardoned 1 Reg. 2. 26. Absolon and Shimei two wicked Rebels and Solomon pardoned Abiathar that were all worthy of death but also Saint Augustine speaking of other Kings and Veniam criminosis indulgere Emperours saâ—th judicibus statuendum est ne liceat in reum datam sententiam revocare the Judges may not pardon a man condemned to death numquid ipse Imperator sub hac lege erit but shall not the Emperour or King pardon him are they likewise under this Law of restraint by no meanes Nam ipsi soli licet revocare sententiam reum mortis absolvere ipsi ignoscere for he and he alone that is the Emperour or King may revoke the sentence and absolve him that is guilty of death And so our King according to this his undenyable right hath most graciously and not seldome offered his pardon unto these intolerable Our kings unparallel'd elemency and piety towards the Rebels Rebels a pardon not to be parallel'd in any History nor to be beleived unlesse we had seen it that a man could be so far inclined to elemency and mercy as to remit such transcendent impiety which will render them the more odious both to God and man and their names the more infamous to all posterity that after they had filled themselves with all kind of wickednesse with incredible transgressions they should be found contemners of so favourable a pardon But though it be the Kings right to pardon faults and to restore offenders yet herein all Princes should take great heed especially when they have power 2. Sam. 3. 39. to take revenge for sometimes the sâ—nners may be like the sons of Zervia too strong for David how they pardon thâ—se great crimes that are committed to the dishonour of God and do so far provoke him to anger as to plague both the doers and the sufferers of them because that although they be sâ—luti legibus suis not Arnisaeus l. 1. c. 3. pag. â—9 bound to their own Lawes yet they are not soluti ratienâ— praeceptis divinis but they are bound to observe Gods Lawes and to punish the transgressors of his Commandments or if they do not when they can do it they shall render a strict account to God for all their omissions as they may see it in the example of King Saul 1 Sam. 15. 9. 6. Jus convocandi the right of calling Synods Parliaments Dyets and the 6. Jus convocandi Synodos Parliamenta c. like were the rights of the kings of Israel and are the just Prerogatives of the kings of England howsoever this saction of the Parliament hath sought to wrest it as they do all other rights out of the kings hands by their presumption to call their Schismaticall Synod to which they have no more colour of right then to call a Parliament 7. Jus excudendi the right of coyning mony to give it valxe to stampe his 7. Jus mone tas excudendi Matth. 22. 20. armes or his image upon it as our Saviour saith Whose Image and superscription is this and they say to him Caesars is the proper right of Caesar the prerogative of the king The second sort of the King 's right is circa Magistratus and containeth jurisdiction 2. About the Magistrates rule creation of officers appointing of circuits provinces judgements censures institution of Scholes and Colledges collation of dignities receiving of fidelities and abundance more whereof I intend not to speak at this time but refer my Reader to Arnisaeus de jure Majâ—statis if he desires to be informed of these particulars Arnâ—s l. 2 c 2 And as these and the like are jura Regalia the rights of Majesty in the time of peace so when peace cannot continue it doth properly belong unto the King and to none else but to him that hath the Soveraignty whose right it is alone to make war either to succour his allyes or to revenge great injuries or for any the like just causes and as he seeth cause to conclude Peace to send Ambassadours to negotiate with foreign States and the like are the rights of Kings and the indeleble Characters of Soveraignty which whosoever violateth and endeavoureth to purloin them from the King doth with Prometheus steal fire from Heaven which the Gods would not suffer as the Poets feign to go unrevenged And these
obliged to perform such a promise or to keep such an oath to tell you mine own judgement I think he ought not to perform it and our own Law tels us what grants soever are obtained from the King under the broad Seal by fraud and deceit those grants are void in Law therefore seeing the Act for the perpetuity of this Parliament was obtained dolâ— pessimo to the great dishonour of God and the ruine both of Church and State when their pretence was very good though the goodness of his Majesty in the tenderness of his conscience was still loath to allow himself the liberty to dissolve it until he had other juster and more clear causes to pronounce it no Parliament as the abusing of his grant to the raising of an Army and the upholding of a Rebellion against their Soveraign yet I believe he might safely have done it long agone without the least violation of God's Law when their evil intentions were openly discovered by those Armies which they raised For I doubt not to affirm it with the Authour of The sacred Prerogative of Christian Kings p. 144. if any good Prince or his royal Ancestors have been cheated out of their sacred right by fraud or force he may at the fittest opportunity when God in his wise providence offereth the occasion resume it especially when the Subjects do abuse the King's concessions to the dammage of Soveraignty so that it redounds also to the prejudice either of the Church or Common-wealth 3. When the King through fear not such as the Parliaments fear is who 3. Grants gotten by force not to be observed were afraid where no fear was and were frighted with dreames and causelesse jealousies but that fear which is real and not little but such as may fall in fortem constantem virum doth passe any Law especially that is prejudicial to the Church and injurious to many of his Subjects I say that when he shall be freed from that fear he is not onely freed from the obligation of that Law but he is also obliged to do his uttermost endeavour to annul the same it is true that his fear may justly free him from all blame at the passing of it as the fear of the thief may clear me from all fault in delivering my purse unto him because these are no voluntary acts and all acts are adjudged good or evil according to the disposition of the will the same being like the golden bridle The will must never consent to forced acts that are unlawful His Majesties answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons 16. Julii p. 8. that Minerva was said to put upon Pegasus to guide him and to turn him as she pleased but when his fear is past and God hath delivered him from the insurrection of wicked doers if his will gives consent to what before he did unwilling who can free the greatest Monarch from this fault Therefore His Majesty confessing which we that saw the whole proceedings of those tumultuous routs that affrighted all the good Protestants and the Loyal Subjects do know that it could not be otherwise that he was driven out of London for fear of his life I conclude that the act of excluding the Bishops out of Parliament being past after his flight out of London can be no free nor just nor lawful act and the King when he is more fully informed of many particulars about this act that is so prejudicial to the Church of Christ and so injurious to all his servants the Clergy whose rights and priviledges the King promised and sware at His Coronation to maintain cannot continue it in my judgement and be innocent But this is answered by the answerer to Doctour Ferne that he is no more Ob. Pag. 31. bound to defend the rights of the Clergy by his oath then the râ—st of the Lawes formerly enacted whereof any may be abrogated without perjury when they are desired to be annulled by the Kingdome To which I say that as His Majesty confesseth there are two speciall questions Sol. His Majesties answer to the â—eâ—onstrance or declaration of the Lords and Commons 26. of May 1642. demanded of the king at His Coronation 1. Sir Will you grant and keep and by your oath confirm to the people of England the Lawes and Customes to them granted by the Kings of England your lawfull and religious predecessors And the king answereth I grant and promise to keep them 2. After such questions as concerne all the commonalty of this kingdome both Clergy and Laity as they are his Subjects one of the Bishops reads this admonition to the king before the people with a loud voice Our Lord and King we beseech you to pardon and to grant and to preserve unto us and to the Churches committed to our charge all Canonicall priviledges and due law and justice and that you would protect and defend us as every good King in His Kingdome ought to be the protector and defender of the Bishops and the Churches under their Government And the king answereth With a willing and devout heart I promise and grant my pardon and that I will preserve and maintaine to you and the Churches committed to your charge all Canonicall Priviledges and due law and Justice and that I will be your Protector and defender to my power by the assistance of God as every good king in His kingdome in right ought to protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under their Government The Kings Oath at His Coronation two-fold Then the king laying his hand upon the book saith the things which I have before promised I shall performe and keep so helpe me God and the contents of this Book Where I beseech all men to observe that here is a two-fold promise and so a two-fold oath 1. The one to all the Commonalty and people of England Clergy and Laity The first part of the Oath Populâ— Anglicaâ—o Vide D. p. 165. and so whatsoever he promiseth may by the consent of the parties to whom the right was transferred be remitted and altered by the representative body in Parliament quia volenti non fit injuria and the rule holds good quibus modis contrahitur contractus iiâ—dem dissolvitur and therefore as any compact or contract is made good and binding so it may be made void and dissolved mutuo contrahentium â—ssensu by the mutuall assent of both parties that is any compact where God hath not a speciall interest in the contract as he hath in the conjugall contract betwixt man and wife and the politicke covenant betwixt the Contracts wherein God is interessed cannot be dissolved without God King and His Subjects which therefore cannot be dissolved by the consent of the parties untill God who hath the cheifest hand in the contract gâ—ves his assent to the dissolution and so when things are dedicated for the service of God or Priviledges granted for his honour neither donor nor receiver can alienate
of the affaires of Ireland to the Parliament of England then they took that course to root out all the Papists Irish English Brittish and indeed all the Inhabitants of Ireland except their own brotherhood for they could have soon descried the marke of the beast in all the rest which they â—hought would be most effectual to further their designe and to bring the whole Kingdom of Ireland to be inherited by their own faction that is to sell all the Lands of the Rebels to themselves for they knew none else would buy it at that time and in that manner as they determined and when they had thus locked the dooreâ— and stopped the way of all relief unto the distressed Protestants of that Kingdom they might sing Dimidium toti qui benè coepit habet For they had setled Scotland and they had now grasped Ireland and held it fast in Vulcans net and therefore now it might stay till they could reduce England to make a perfect work in all the three Kingdomes to the same forme of government both in Church and State as they projected for the other and because they would have some places of entrance into Ireland and hinder the Rebels to How they blinded the people by their proceedings possesse the whole Kingdome and also blind the eyes of the ignorant not to perceive their plot but to keep them still in some hope of redresse they sent such a party over and the Scots must be the most considerable part as might keep their own design on foot and yet yield not an inch of any comfort to the spoyled and expelled Protestant for they left that party which they sent thither rather as a prey to their enemies as having neither cloathes meat nor money then inabled by these accoâ—trements to subdue the Rebels as it is better and more fully declared by the Letter of the State of Ireland to the House of Commons then I can relate unto you And I being in Ireland seeing the deplorable state of that Kingdome the What the Author saw in Ireland miserable distress of the mangled starved and naked Protestants the little children calling and crying for bread and none to give it them many worthy Ministeâ—s begging or dying for want in the streets and the poore bare footed and hunger bitten Souldier lamenting his hard fortune to be transplanted out of Gods blessing into the warme sun from plenty and prosperity to be left as the Traveller betwixt Hierusalem and Hicrico halfe dead beâ—wixt merciless Rebells and more unmercifull friends neither wholly to be destroyed nor yet to be releived was much troubled and perplexed at these sad aspects and being intrusted by the Bishops my Brethren of that Kingdome to agitate the cause of the Church for our reliefe here in England and to that end having a Letter unto his Majesty and a Remonstrance of our distressed condition though with the great hazard of my life at Sea yet I arrived by Gods great blessing How used as soon as ever he came to his House in England and before I had been two dayes at home my house was surrounded with a Troope of Armed Souldiers they entred in seized upon my person searched every roome and every corner with a candle not leaving the bedstraw whereon my children lay unsearched they took all my papers and all the money they found in my house even my servants money to the summ of 40 and carried all with me their poor Prisoner to Northhampton and now I thought it was but an ill exchange to escape the Sea and to fall into the fire to shun the How a precise Church warden would have hindred a Bishop to preach Lion and to meeet a Beare to eschew the Rebels in Ireland and to fall into the hands of Traytors in England and I knew not why but onely that I had often Preached at Towâ—â—ster where being requested by Master Lockwood to supply the place the preâ—isâ— Church-wardens very peremptorily told me â— should not do it because I was a royalist and spake against the Parliament to whom I replyed that he had no such authority to hinder a Bishop to Preach and bad him look to mend his glasse-windowes that were all full of holes where the faces of the pictures were plucked out and in other Churches thereabouts that they should so honour and obey their King as God commandeth us for which refusal to be admonished I believe they are now and perhaps will be more hereafter sufficiently punished But the Committee there finding in me no cause worthy of death or of bonds Gods providence so mercifully watching over me that it stopped their eyes that they looked not on my Grand Rebellion which they had in their hands and would no doubt have utterly undone me had they but espied the Capitall title that I was dismissed and I confesse courteously used by Sir John Norwich Then afterwards when time served I repaired to His Majesty and having delivered my Letters I spake to Him and drew a Petition and I think I was the first that petitioned in this kind I do not repent it neither am I ashamed to confesse it and got some hands unto it as that worthy and noble Gentleman Colonel Onâ—ale can beare witnesse the sum whereof was that the Parliament having betrayed the trust that was reposed in them wholly deserted our relief and giving us none other comfort then what I expressed in my Discovery of Mysteries His c. 12. p. 24. Majesty would be pleased to consider that we were his Loyall Subjects and that the care of us was committed by God to him not to his Parliament who had left us in a worse condition then the Rebels had made us and therefore as he justly required our faith and alleageance so we humbly besought him that he would graciously vouchsafe unto us his princely care and assistance some waies to relieve us otherwise then by leaving us still in their hands till we and our families in the languishing expectation of our redresse should finally and irrecoverably perish while these crafty Merchants thus bought and sold us and under the pretence of reformation used all their endeavours to bring both Kingdomes to destruction CHAP. XIX Sheweth how the Rebellious faction have transgressed all the ten Commandments of the Law and the new Commandment of the Gospel how they have committed the seven deadly sins and the foure crying sins and the three most destructive sins to the soul of man and how their Ordinances are made against all Lawes Equity and Conscience 22. THey have in no small measure transgressed all the Commandments of 1. They adore and put their trust in that creature Ps 74. v. 4. 7 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quis tibi in mentem dolorem imposuit ut haec perficias magni Dei ore relicto 2. How they have abused Gods house God the ten Commandments of the Law and the new Commandment of the Gospel For 1. The factious Rebels
of their doings 12. They averre that the King hath no negative voice in making Lawes but they may conclude them and make them obligatory without the Kings approbation or ratification and that they may do any thing conducible to the good of the Church and Common-wealth any Law Statute or provision made to the contrary notwithstanding 13. They are not ashamed to teach as they do practice that it is lawfull for What they say of their Covenants them to make Covenants Combinations and Confederacies of mutuall defence and offence against any person whatsoever whom themselves judge malignant not excepting the King himselfe and they say that it were better for them to renounce their Baptisme then to forsake their Covenant which they believe will be more advantageous to the Kingdome then all the Priviledges that are granted in Magna Charta or the Statutes that have been made ever since 14. They jeered at the Kings Proclamations trampled his Declarations under feet and incountred the same with rebellious Protestations 15. They perswade the people to give no eare to any discourse of Accommodation To what they liken the kings pardons or conclusion for any peace and say that the King is not to be trusted that he will performe no promise that he maketh either in his Proclamations or Declarations and therefore that the Kings Pardons may be likened to a buckler of glasse or a staffe of reede on which there is no trust no committing themselves to the defence of any such pardon So we may say with the Poet Nos juvat alma quies gens haec fera bella minatur Et quoties pacem poscimus arma crepat 16. They teach the Doctrine of coercion dedignifying degrading and decapitating Whence they learned their Divinity of Kings when they deeme them unworthy of that dignity and their arguments and reasons they collect and produce out of Dâ—lman Bellarm. Suarez and the Magazine of the most rigid Jesuites 17. They have so barbarously so irreverently and so prophanely abused our Service-Bâ—â—k that it would â—ath your â—ares to heare transcend modesty to tell you how they have dealt with it and they threatned that if the Ministers would read it they should never read book again 18. They do agree with the worst of Papists the Jesuites in a great many of How contrary to 〈◊〉 doctrine Matth. 13. 19. they would root out all Papists the worst points of doctrine that they teach and yet being not well able to understand their tenets they hate Papists so much that they would root them out of their very being they would destroy all the Irish that are Papists and dâ—ive all Papists out of England out of the world that the name of Papists should be no more in remembrance and contrary to all reason diâ—inity and humanity they would force and compell every man to profess the Religion that they are of though some of them as their independents are far on the other side would have every man to have liberty to profess what Religion himselfe liketh best 19. They have most ingratefully and disloyally injured a most loving wife How they have wronged the Queen the Nobility Clergy Gentâ—y and Commons of this Land and their owne most gracious Queen for shewing Her love and discharging Her duty to Her husband They have imprisoned and barbarously used some of the Nobility most of the Clergy and abundance of the Gentry and others of the best account of the common Subjects of this Kingdom they have plundered and robbed many thousands of men they have killed and murdered as many they have made our Cities dens of theeves our Churches prisons and all the Land Aâ—heldama's fields of blood they multiplyed the number of Widowes Orphanes and Theeves without number throughtout the Land and they filled the whole Kingdome with miseries lamentations and woes and they have done so many mischiefes as if I should set them all down would fill up another volume And 20. As if all this were not enough to fill up the measure of their iniquity they How they laboured to call in the Scots spared neither pains nor cost to call in the Scots to assist them to perpetuate the War to fill our Kingdome with strangers and to make our calamities everlasting so they fell from evil to worse from discontent to schisme from schisme to open Rebellion and their Rebellion more wicked then any Rebels that we can reade of in any History which is the just judgment of God upon them that they which rebelliously run out of the Communion of Gods Church should most dâ—sperately run out of their own wits and refusing to be guarded by the Heavenly Angels should give themselves to be guided by the infernall Divels which made a merry fellow at the enumeration of their abhominable and indeed innumerable wickednesses to say Hell was never better then it is now because he thought the Divels were all in London or otherwise it were impossible that the The speech of a merry companion Citâ—zâ—ns which have received so many gracious offers of pardons from His Majesty and promises of other favours should still continue so wicked as they are so gulled and seduced by this Parliament faction that non suadâ—biâ— etiam si persuaseris because as S. Augustine saith impiamens nolit intellectum and they love to câ—zâ—n and cheat their own souls by new painting these old sins and calling their faction faith their madnesse zeale and their horrid Rebellion fighting for Religion but as the Poët saith Non tantiest civilia bella movere Whatsoever pretences move them to it this remedy will increase their miseries for if God be no more mercifull to us then their sin deserves it may end here in an universal destruction and hereafter in their eternall damnation for both not all the world see how God scourgeth us with the rod of our own furious madnesse and like as it befell the Ammonites and Moabites that fighting against the 2 Chron 20. 23. Israelites did help to destroy one another so we striving not against Israel but as we pretend both against the Edomites against falshood doe utterly destroy our selves Exempióque pari ruit Anglica turba suóque Marte cadunt coesi per mutua vulnera fratres And we that did keep our enemies in awe shall be now destroyed by the sons of our own mother but I confesse our Land abounds with sâ—ns and our sins have justly deserved this heavy punishment to light upon us yet I beseech our God to chastise us with his own hands and let us not â—all under the swords of the uncircumcised Philistines that are a people much more wicked then our selves and if he will let our soules live we shall praise his name 21. When they had most fraudulently gotten His Majesty to pâ—sse an Act which though really intended yet to many men seems a very strange Act to How they intended to get all Ireland to themselves refer the managing